Boy after receiving treatment in Pompaimadu camp. Feb 2009.
Photo by Voitek Asztabski/MSF
For the past three months, Ati* has been living in a camp in Menik farm with her husband and three children. Two weeks ago, her five-year-old son had a fever and was barely responding. She carried him to the clinic in the camp at 5am and queued until 6pm to see a doctor. Like many others that day, she did not get to see a doctor and she returned with her sick child to their tent without receiving treatment. She went back the next day and again failed to see a doctor after waiting for another 13 hours. It wasn’t until the third day that she finally managed to see a doctor who gave her some antibiotics.
300 patients a day
Even if services are gradually expanding in the camps - there is a Ministry of Health clinic in each one and medical staff are doing what they can - the needs are vast and facilities are overstretched.
Some doctors are seeing 200 to 300 patients a day, there is little capacity to carry out tests or follow up with patients and only the most urgent cases are transferred to hospitals outside the camps.
Maruthani,* a 24-year-old woman, arrived in Menik Farm at the end of May and is badly disfigured since a fragment of bomb shell cut her lips, cheeks and chin during the conflict. Her mouth is always open, her tongue is badly affected, she can barely drink and cannot speak. She is in need of reconstructive surgery, which is not available inside the camp.
When her wounds became infected, she went in pain to the camp’s clinic. There, they were unable to do anything for her and she was not transferred to a hospital outside the camp because she was not considered to be an emergency case. She spends her days lying in the sand outside her tent, waiting for the day to pass.
Some emergency cases in the camps are referred by the Ministry of Health staff to the MSF hospital outside Menik Farm where MSF medical teams are mostly treating patients for conflict-related trauma, respiratory tract infections and skin diseases.
The problem comes at night. “In many camps, if someone gets sick at night they have to rely on the soldier at the gate of the camp to take the decision on whether they get referred to a hospital or not,” explains Karline Kleijer, MSF emergency coordinator.
“This works for those who are obviously ill, fitting or with a bleeding wound, but when it is a dehydrated child with a fever, the average soldier will not see that he or she is in urgent need of medical attention because this is not an easy thing to diagnose.”
Breakfast at night
Another concern for those in the camps is access to clean water and food. In most camps, people do not cook for themselves but rely on community kitchens and rations distributed daily by the government or NGOs.
“Sometimes, especially in the newer camps, the food doesn’t get delivered until late in the evening and the first meal of the day is at ten o’clock at night,” says an MSF aid worker.
Every day, MSF distributes high energy porridge to 23,000 children under five, pregnant and lactating women and people over 60 in 11 of the camps. “It is difficult for our staff [to have] to turn people away when they do not fit into our target group,” she adds.
Outside of the camps, hundreds of people are still hospitalised, receiving treatment for injuries they incurred during the conflict. Working with Ministry of Health staff in Pompaimadu hospital, MSF is treating 180 patients with spinal cord injuries, fractures that have not healed and infected wounds. The MSF surgeon performs an average of 16 to 20 surgeries a week and physiotherapy is a large component of the programme.
“To see someone walk again thanks to the physiotherapy is amazing,” says MSF surgeon Tim Pruchnic.
Traumatised
Traumatised by what they experienced during the conflict, many of the patients in hospital are struggling to cope with their grief and worry about their future and the fate of their loved ones.
“One young mother admitted to Pompaimadu has lost her husband, her parents, her sister, her sister’s husband and children,” recounts an MSF worker.
“She is alone now in Pompaimadu hospital recovering from her injuries, she is the sole survivor of her family and she is pregnant. She feels very lonely and is still in shock, it has only been two and a half months since she lost everything and everyone. She worries about how she will cope as a single mother. As long as she stays in Pompaimadu, she can get help, but when she is discharged to the camps, she will no longer get any support.”
In the camps, residents are dealing with the trauma experienced in the conflict and it is difficult for them to rebuild any semblance of a normal life. There are very few job opportunities inside the camps – which people are not allowed to leave – and parents worry about their children’s education.
People have difficulties searching for relatives, making plans or taking control of their own futures. With nowhere to go, there is little to do other than walk from one distribution point to another. The uncertainty of how long they have to remain in the camps is difficult to live with. There is therefore a huge need for psychological support for camp residents but currently, none is provided.
Ready to start
In addition to the high energy porridge the MSF teams cook and distribute in the camps, MSF has the capacity to scale up activities and provide medical support to the Ministry of Health staff inside the camps.
“We have two whiteboards in our office,” explains Karline. “One with a list of planned activities for the coming weeks: supplementary feeding, surgery, etc. And another is a list of activities waiting for approval, including mental health, basic health care and physiotherapy in the camps… We are ready to start!”
MSF continues to pursue discussions with the authorities in Colombo.
*name has been changed
Why not read an interview with Hans van de Weerd, general director of MSF - Holland, on the situation in the northern district of Vavuniya, as well as an interview with Tim Pruchnic, an MSF surgeon who has been working in Pompaimadu hospital since May.